The Boy Who Grew Taller Than Me

There was a morning— I don't remember which one, they all blurred together in that last year— when you walked into the kitchen and I looked up. Up. I had never looked up at you before. You were always below me— in my arms, on my hip, at my knee asking for things I could reach and you couldn't. And then one morning: up. Son, you are becoming someone I don't recognize. Not because you've changed— because you've arrived. The person you were always going to be has started showing up in your jaw, your opinions, your refusal to accept my answer as the final one. I see your mother in your patience. I see myself in your stubbornness. I see something that belongs to neither of us and is entirely yours— a way of standing in a room that says: I'm here and I chose to be and I'm not going to apologize for the space I take. Good. Take the space. All of it. I wanted to raise a man who didn't need me. I succeeded. And it's the worst success I've ever had because the house is so quiet now and the cereal lasts an entire week and the bathroom is available whenever I want it and I hate it. Come home sometimes. Not because you need to. Because I do. And yes, I know you're taller now. But from where I stand, you will always be the small thing that fit in the crook of my arm and changed everything.